Cross-Departmental Roles in Digital Marketing

Every marketing department from company to company has its own, internal workplace culture to navigate. The truth is, marketing departments have varied tasks within the company, and this can create a feeling within the department that there is too much work to do and not enough time.

Many companies choose to bring in an agency to help with the work, and even a Fractional CMO to oversee the work, but even though this is helpful, it can also create a situation where there are multiple projects going on at once. The tendency is to sort of put marketing in its own “silo” and only involve the main players to complete these projects.

We have found that this does more harm than good. No matter how many projects a marketing department has going on, it’s still important to involve all the main players in the company as early in the process as possible. Here’s more information:

Don’t Keep Marketing Projects a Secret

We have had clients in the past who have embarked on some major marketing-related projects, such as overhauling their website or going through a drastic rebranding of their company, but have kept the project a relative secret until the last minute. If you think about it, this is extremely risky.

First of all, projects of that scale affect multiple departments, and these departments may want to weigh in while the changes are unfolding. In fact, they should weigh in. Their feedback can help ensure the success of the project, plus make the company feel as if everyone is on the same team and on the same page.

Keeping People in the Dark Can Cause Issues

One of the main problems with controlling who is in the loop when it comes to these important projects is that it can cause major issues around the time of the launch. People don’t often react the way we expect, and the marketing department might have to do some damage control if people are left in the dark.

Damage control can cause serious delays. In our experience, involving multiple departments in these major projects gets the “damage control” over with early (if it’s even needed). This means that it is less likely to cause the project launch to delay, which is a risk you take if you wait too long to involve people.

Being Upfront Creates a Team Attitude

Although you may be trying to prevent problems by only involving certain people at the end of the project, right before launch, the opposite is often true. Often, the people who were left in the dark have some hurt feelings and resistance that might need to be navigated.

The easiest way to prevent this is to involve them from the beginning. This helps them feel as if they are part of the team, and since they were included in the project, they will be less likely to offer resistance. In the off-chance that they do, these feelings can be worked through early on in the process.

We feel that it is much better to be up front with the entire team from the beginning of a project, rather than deal with hurt feelings and delays towards the end!